Origin

The earliest sense of hit, in the Old English period, was ‘to come upon, meet with, find’. Popular successes, first of all plays, and then songs, have been called hits since the beginning of the 19th century. In the 1990s the phrase to hit the ground running became something of a cliché. It seems to refer to soldiers disembarking rapidly from a helicopter, though no one has been able to trace it back to any particular conflict. Marksmanship and shooting are behind a number of phrases, including to hit the mark, ‘to be successful in an attempt or accurate in a guess’ and hit-and-miss ‘done or occurring at random’, which is more understandable in its earlier form hit-or-miss (early 17th century).

get on well, get on, get along, be on good terms, be friends, be friendly, be compatible, relate well to each other, feel a rapport, see eye to eye, take to each other, warm to each other, find things in common